The Lost Weekend, the novel, is getting renewed notice these days largely because of the publication of author Blake Bailey’s new biography of its author, Farther & Wilder: The Lost Weekends and Literary Dreams of Charles Jackson.

Jackson was a balding deep-in-the-closet homosexual (he had married and had had two daughters) who had coped with a heavy drinking problem in the mid-Thirties. Like the protagonist of his novel, writer Don Birnam, he was a confirmed alcoholic.

One of the new biography’s intentions is to examine “what it meant to be an addict and a closeted gay man in mid-century America, and what one had to do with the other.”

A light bulb went off. Why not have a Books2Movies reconsideration of Weekend the original novel and Weekend the 1945 movie, the fruit of director Billy Wilder’s partnership with Charles Brackett. Both were big commercial successes with Ray Milland walking off with the best-actor Oscar for his strong interpretation of the Don Birnam character onscreen.

Our man Larry eagerly plowed in, and then came back this: Here’s the poop — I tried to read the novel, but found it ragged and creepy and offensive, as I guess it should be, given the subject matter. I was strongly put off by (it).

The opening portion is all about drunken slurs against homosexuals, and a description of a young man at an adjacent table making lip-smacking noises…Don Birnam (the novel’s chief character) of the book appears to be a lot nastier that Ray Milland (who played the character in the movie.)

Charles Jackson, author of the novel, had spent a long time in the bottom of a bottle of booze before he straightened up his life and made something of himself. (His) book has scenes in it of psychiatrists, whom Jackson scorned. He believed that the only cure for an alcoholic was having the boozer renounce drink and stay sober.

It might be that some folks still feel that way; I’ll think about it over my Martini.

Larry hastened to add that he loved the movie version. Jane Wyman(Ray Milland’s costar) was excellent, and as I recall, separate from “The Lost Weekend,” I was very much in love with (her) when I was about six years old. Milland’s impression of absolute alchoholic collapse was enough to make you a teetotaler for life.

The movie was pioneering in the sense that it didn’t treat alcoholism at all lighty, as a subject for laughs. Paramount was dubious about its commercial prospects but green-lighted the project anyway because of the string of hits emanating from the Wilder-Brackett partnership, who worked closely with Jackson on the script. Some of the novel’s rougher edges were smoothed out but the essence of the book is what you see on the screen.

In his 1974 autobiography, Ray Milland: Wide Eyed in Babylon, the actor recalls spending a night of “research” in the psychiatric ward of New York City’s Bellevue Hospital where the really far gone alcoholics were confined until they were sufficiently dried out and could be returned to their families or whatever dismal pads they lived in.

Millandwas formerly admitted to Bellevue, was assigned pajamas, a robe and a narrow iron bed. He was not prepared for what followed next: tough-looking male nurses who acted like jail guards; sounds of moaning, screaming, wailing like deranged coyotes; delusional patients violently resisting their handlers; and ”quiet crying.”

The place was a multitude of smells, but the dominant one was that of a cesspool.

Finally, at 3 a.m., Milland “struggled into a hospital robe and not bothering with slippers” exited the hospital, making a run in public for a taxi to take him back to his Waldorf Towers suite. I never wanted to set eyes on that horrifying place again.

But I did. It turned out that the very first (‘Weekend”) scene we made in New York portrayed a ward filled with men with the d.t.’s.

Exotic locales! International cast of thousands! Renowned British director creating a sweeping historical panorama based on a thrilling literary masterpiece! See it all on our blog this week!

Hello, everybody. Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, here today to re-create the tone and feeling of those thundering, voice-of-God coming attractions narratives of old that we know and love. I think we’ve done a creditable job — except, of course, for that last sentence. After all, accuracy means something here.

What we are promoting today is a two-part series beginning tomorrow put together by the intrepid LarryMichie, our Books2Movies maven, who has done yeoman work for us in the past tracking the media transformations of From Here To Eternity and All Quiet on the WesternFront, among other literary-to-screen titles.

This time, Larry bit off a real challenge, tracing the path of Seven Pillars of Wisdom – T.E. Lawrence’s 1926 military/adventure memoir documenting the Arab rebellion against the Turks — to director David Lean’s 1962 epic, Lawrence of Arabia, starring Peter O’Toole as Lawrence.

The cast also includes Alec Guinness (playing a royal Arab chieftain, of all things), AnthonyQuinn (as a fiery Arab tribal leader, of all things), Omar Sharif, Claude Rains,Jack Hawkins, Jose Ferrer and Arthur Kennedy.

Frank, who likes the movie a lot, once tried to read the book but gave up, complaining that Lawrence’s hyper-rich period prose style is akin to eating a seven-course meal comprised exclusively of deserts. But Larry is a huge fan, and much enjoyed comparing the book to the the movie.

What was left out? What was included? What was included but re-arranged on the big screen? Larry will provide some interesting answers. He’ll also get into the subject of Lawrence’s sexuality both in the book and onscreen, a topic of some debate among cineastes for decades.

One of the reasons we admire the movie so is that it was produced by one of Hollywood most legendarily determined producers, Sam Spiegel. Columbia Pictures was aghast that the director’s cut of the movie ran three hours and forty minutes, which meant the movie would be shown at least one less time daily in theatrical release.

But Spiegel fought them…and won, by intransigence and cunning, wrote Andrew Sinclair in his 1987 biography of the producer. He was like Lawrence in the film, slowly putting out a burning match with his fingers. When asked what was the trick to make it not hurt, Lawrence replied, ‘Of course it hurts. The trick is not minding that it hurts.’

Spiegel was also renowned as one of the shadiest characters ever to negotiate the byzantine byways of producing films in Hollywood. An Austrian Jew born in 1904, he once sought to play down his ethnic ancestry by changing his name to S.P. Eagle. His past was filled with conflicts with the law on at least two continents, runs for his life, bounced checks (although he died in 1985 a very wealthy man) and a profligate life style (mansions, yachts, Cuban cigars, etc.) whether the money was there or not.

The late novelist-screenwriter John Gregory Dunne told this anecdote:

Once, strolling on a London street with a doxy, Spiegel was allegedly kicked in the rear by a passerby. Without looking around or breaking stride, he allegedly said, ‘The check is in the mail.’

We still have Hawaii on our mind since today’s blog is another installment in our series (written by our Books 2 Movies maven Larry Michie) about the 1953 Columbia Pictures classic “From Here To Eternity,” a movie we like a lot.

As you probably know, the movie is set in Hawaii and concerns the antics of restless GI’s just before the Pearl Harbor disaster. The 1951 novel by James Jones is pretty raw stuff. Our Books 2 Movie maven Larry details today about what DID NOT make it from the novel to the movie.

1 — The Army brass held stag parties, complete with whiskey, whores, and private rooms for cavorting.

2 — In the book, Karen (Deborah Kerr) had 12-year-old son by her husband. She nonetheless was bitter about the hysterectomy she was given without consultation, so she could have no more children.

In the movie she blames her husband for coming home drunk while she was pregnant with a child, who she lost. Her childlessness is a clear difference from the novel.

3 — Karen’s husband (Philip Ober) was a Lt., not a Captain until well into the book. In the movie, he’s a Captain throughout.

4 –Karen had long blonde hair. In the movie she had a curly mop-top.

5 — Prew’s (Montgomery Clift) girlfriend, Laurene (Donna Reed), revealed her real name late in the game. In the movie, she spoke right up in calling herself Alma from the get-go.

6 — In the movie, Laurene and the other girls were hostesses, although they were clearly good-time girls. In the novel, they were simply whores. Prew already had dumped his local girlfriend, and he fell hard for Laurene, frequently referred to as the princess.

7 — It’s kind of corny but charming : The movie manages to insert some of Prew’s friends in the barracks playing guitars and singing The Re-enlistment Blues. In the novel, the guys with guitars haul out their instruments in nighttime while out on maneuvers, and they collaborate on the lyrics as they go along.

8 – In the novel, Prew is court-marshalled after a trumped-up charge, and he’s too damned hard-headed to plead guilty to a minor infraction. He gets sent to the rock pile, where he meets a kind of guru who is vouched for by Maggio (Frank Sinatra), who is also breaking rocks.

Maggio’s defiance lands him in The Hole, where he eventually dies. (Severely injured, he escapes detention in the movie, and dies on a deserted road in Prew’s arms.) Prew vows retribution when he can catch up with Fatso (Ernest Borgnine), who is responsible for Maggio’s death.

In the movie, Fatso earlier has a run-in with Maggio in a bar, but Sargent Warden (Burt Lancaster) steps in to stop the fight. Fatso vows the get The Wop, as Maggio is regularly called. Later, Maggio gets picked up for drunkenness, and Fatso throws Maggio in the slammer.

In both the novel and the movie, Prew eventually gets Fatso in an alley and a knife fight ensues. It’s probably like a realistic knife fight — quick stabs after some circling. Fatso dies, but Prew is badly hurt as well. He gets to the house in a nice section of town where Lurlene/Alma lives with another girl of the night, and they manage to bandage him up.

9 — Sargent Warden and others attempt to cover up for Prew, who stays out of sight. But Alma and her girlfriend are right to be worried. Prew, who is utterly committed to life in the Army, misses that comradeship and is fearful that he might be discovered.

He has two major pastimes at Alma’s house. One is reading, and Alma’s girlfriend brings home book after book that Prew devours. The other hobby, alas, is getting dead drunk day after day after day. He’s so lost and confused that he treats Alma badly, and even she begins to get fed up.

Then, dramatically, the Japanese attack (on Dec. 7, 1941), and Prew knows where he must go. He steals a pistol from Alma and sets out to get back to Schofield barracks. He makes his way down to the beach, but there are patrolling soldiers there, and they are jumpy about reports that the Japanese may be infiltrating the island, and so forth.

When Prew tries to run away, the solders shoot and Prew dies. Sargent Warden comes along to identify the dead Prew. (In this respect the movie follows the book.)

Hello Everybody. Mr. Joe Morella and Mr. Frank Segers back again while Mrs.Norman Maine is outside at the barbecue preparing a luau (lomi salmon and kalua pig are her specialties).

We’re in a Hawaii frame of mind today because we’re focusing on that Columbia Pictures classic, 1953′s “From Here To Eternity.” This excellent movie is set there, and was actually filmed in the 50th state.

Its plot, about roistering GI’s on the loose in Pearl Harbor just before that Dec. 7, 1941 attack, always struck us as a tough and sexy, but nowhere near as raw and real as its source material. (After all, it was made during the oh-so-proper Fifties!) The movie seems to only hint at what is explicit in the book.

So we asked our Books 2 Movies maven LarryMichie to dig in, and compare the novel to the film to see if our hunch is correct.

We like the movie so much that we are devoting a series of blogs covering Larry’s revelations about the original James Jones book as compared with the Fred Zinnemann movie. Some of his conclusions might by surprise you.

So, let’s get going with the first of Larry’s reports.

“From Here to Eternity” ranks as one of the best Book 2 Movie ever made. Despite the staggering 650 pages, the book translates beautifully to the screen. The essence of the James Jones novel was captured perfectly by director Fred Zinnemann, and the famous scene of Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in passionate embrace on the beach (see photo above) has long since been established as a Hollywood icon.

But hold onto your hats, ladies and gentlemen.

The novel is brimming over with challenging and sometimes shocking depictions of army life just before the famous Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. And despite a title borrowed from Kipling’s Gentlemen-rankers out on a spree, Damned from Here to Eternity, the ranks of real gentlemen in the novel are few indeed.

Bear in mind, however, that many of the army’s enlisted men signed up during the Great Depression because there were few or no jobs available to working-class men. The army provided grub and enough pay to allow soldiers to get drunk now and then. Sgt. Milt Warden (Lancaster in the movie) was a lifer, a highly efficient manager who kept his company humming.

Robert E. Lee Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) was from impoverished coal mining country, namely Harlan County, Kentucky, and Maggio (Frank Sinatra) had a menial job at a Manhattan department store. By the way, Prewitt was raped at age twelve after he climbed into a boxcar in an attempt to flee poverty. (That’s NOT in the movie.)

These were uneducated men without a future. The army suited them just fine. One man in the company had served in World War One, and a few had been involved in the Philippines. They didn’t have a lot of professional options.

All that is in part a way of warning readers of the book that the men stationed in Hawaii were not always decent and polite.

Ethnic slurs were commonplace. Maggio was often referred to as The Wop. It’s easy to guess the terms employed regarding African-Americans. And although there were Jews in the mix, they were the subject of vicious derision.

Aside from all that, things were about perfect … NOT.

James Jones was not an elegant writer, and the prose of the novel is as rough-hewn as the enlisted men who are portrayed. But if you get hooked on the huge, hard-edged depiction of a rough and rugged time in the life of our country, you’ll know that you’ve been given a realistic ride through times that were challenging indeed.

In Larry’s next report, he’ll get down to the specific subjects covered at length in “From Here To Eternity” the book but left completely out of “From Here To Eternity” the movie. So, stay tuned.